As more mobile phones begin offering users Web browsers, consumers will be able to visit avirtual' storefronts from anywhere. This change in e-commerce has potential for corporations that market smart card technology, says Kevin Gillick.
Recent advances in technology have brought e-commerce to the street. Today, it is possible for mobile phone users to access the Internet with their digital handsets to purchase theatre tickets, trade stock and keep an eye on the fate of their favourite football team.
Telecommunications experts anticipate that five years from now, nearly as many people will access the Internet from a mobile device such as a cell phone as from a desktop PC.
Smart cards have provided the cellular phone industry with important identity and user security elements as traditional voice communications have evolved. Looking ahead, smart cards will have a similar function in the industry's push towards incorporating wireless data. The role of smart cards in commerce continues evolving at a rapid pace, and future opportunities for smart card technology in mobile e-commerce appear promising.
Mobile devices that provide access to goods and services via the Web are expected to have a significant impact on sales figures in the foreseeable future. Some telecommunications experts are projecting that by 2005, mobile e-commerce receipts will exceed US$200bn.
One of the mobile phone's strongest assets in e-commerce is the ability of its network to track your location at any time. As a result, a mobile phone user with Web access can download location-based services such as directions to the nearest petrol station or hospital directly to the handset's screen. But to do so, networks that handle large blocks of content, and devices with good user interfaces need to be in place.
Smart cards have been at the centre of advances in cell phone technology since the emergence of a global system for mobile communications (GSM). Smart card components called Subscriber Identity Modules (SIM) fit inside a cell phone and are widely used in GSM phones worldwide.
These components, among other things, store information and carry the identity of the subscriber to the service provider. As phone users do more purchasing and other electronic commerce on the run, the significance of the SIM as a security token will grow.
Advances in SIM technology led to SIM application toolkit (STK) technology. This enables operators to transmit applications over the airwaves to GSM phones for the purpose of updating or adding new phone-based applications. Approximately 50 per cent of the cell phones on the market today support STK technology. SIM toolkit cards carry much more memory than SIM cards used only to identify users.
Another advantage smart cards have in providing security to mobile e-commerce is their ability to store adigital certificates,' which will assist in authenticating the origin of a particular transaction. The use of digital certificates and the public key infrastructure (PKI) will provide the merchant community with a solution for addressing consumers' repudiation of transactions.
Smart cards are ideally suited for keeping the security of one's identity self-contained and separate from the mobile device.
Questions to be explored
Applications, along with the digital certificates stored on SIM cards to safeguard mobile commerce, appear to assure the smart card industry of an important role in the coming wireless world. But, as with the fixed Internet, well-grounded assumptions can change quickly. Certain questions about mobile e-commerce need to be further explored before a true picture of the role smart cards will play in the industry can emerge.
First, is it possible for users to feel safe transmitting personal data over airwaves without acceptable, written and widely adopted standards governing the technology behind shopping by phone? Some have suggested that shopping via mobile devices will have limitations until the industry standardises its technology and agrees on a framework for trusted and secure payments.
Also, mobile e-commerce users will be free to browse for services over the Internet. The potential exists that they will sign up with several mobile Internet portals that will send or push information to their handsets automatically. That puts service operators at risk of becoming merely an ainfrastructure' provider. To avoid this, many operators will seek to provide and/or license Web acontent' to capture a larger stake in the process.
Early concerns aside, new technology to power mobile e-commerce continues to be developed at a rapid pace. It seems likely that smart cards will be involved in most of the projected US$200bn worth of mobile commerce for some time to come.
Enquiry No 65
Kevin Gillick is with Datacard, Fareham, UK. www.datacard.com
